


Ships that pass in the night

by estherlyon



Series: Prompts in a Galaxy far far away [1]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Espionage, F/M, Kissing for the mission, No idea what Star Wars weddings are like so bear with me here, Undercover, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-27 07:55:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13243881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/estherlyon/pseuds/estherlyon
Summary: Joreth Sward, an Imperial officer involved in the Tarkin Initiative finds himself crashing the wedding of one Orson Krennic’s niece, much to the chagrin of a particular maid of honor.





	1. A party

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DeadpanPrincess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeadpanPrincess/gifts).



He was supposed to have been invited to this wedding, but the farking holo message from the bride’s parents never came to his apartment on Coruscant.

Joreth Sward had struck deep as an Imperial officer affiliated with Intelligence. His mathematical skills, his reserve and his loyalty got him a position within the Imperial war machine in the Tarkin Initiative. He was a mere analyst, however, and not someone who had access to what it was exactly they were actually researching. While he didn’t have much in common with the rest of the officers there, most enjoyed his company. He proved himself to be the perfect Alderaanian officer, an example that even though his planet’s Royal Family were reluctant to cooperate with the Empire, there were those who found no problems in being its loyal subjects. Which didn’t mean that there weren’t obstacles in socializing with his colleagues. His shyness meant that he was perceived as trustworthy most of the time, but when it came to social functions, he found himself mostly being left out.

This was highly inconvenient, because Joreth Sward was actually a Rebel spy who needed desperately to be among intoxicated Imperial officers. After an entire year undercover, Sward now felt he had come to a crucial point in his mission. The energy around his colleagues had shifted somewhat, with a sense of urgency. One of the superior officers involved in the Initiative, a man named Orson Krennic, seemed more impatient and more belligerent with each passing month. He didn’t want to start asking questions at work; that was too risky. What he needed was a joyous occasion where those stuffed shirts would be loose enough to talk.

Krennic’s niece getting married to a fellow officer had been just what he needed, but the invite never came.

Sward, however, was desperate enough for any progress in his mission that he decided to simply crash it. So he put on his dress uniform, managed to hack into a colleague’s inbox to steal an invitation code, and waltzed into the gilded ballroom atop one of Imperial Center’s finest hotels like he belonged there.

He did not, however, anticipate meeting a pair of blazing green-gray eyes who appeared to see right through him.

A maid of honor; apparently, maids of honor – in most Core Worlds' cultures - were the sort of people who would spot those who weren’t supposed to be there within a moment’s notice. This was the sort of annoying detail that even K-2SO would oversee in his analysis of their chances of success. Also, he couldn’t remember anyone like her in the files he had on Krennic and his family. The bride and groom and even the engineer himself were too out of their minds with joy and later with Alderaanian wine not to greet him and accept his congratulations like he was one of their closest friends. He ate, he laughed, and he prodded some of his colleagues with questions about Krennic, saying it was a relief to see one of their bosses let off some steam at such a joyous occasion.

However, in his peripheral vision there was always green silk and dark hair, and watchful, very watchful, lovely eyes.

He had to deal with that situation before it all went to hell.

She was standing off to the side, a flute of sparkling wine in her hand, sullenness etched on her face. Even with what he could tell were high heels, she was still shorter than him. And he wasn’t particularly tall. Not compared to the average Imperial officer.

“Would you like to dance?” he asked, his consonants with just a tinge of his fake Alderaanian accent.

She raised an eyebrow, seemed to appreciate his utter gall, and then to appreciate him as her irises darted over him down to his very polished shoes. Something he hadn’t felt in a very long time pinged in his gut and for a brief second he panicked.

“Sure,” she replied after what seemed an eternity, but was bound to have been only a couple of standard seconds.

She carefully placed her unfinished drink on a nearby table and let him lead her to the dance floor. He pretended that her hand on his shoulder and the feel of silk under his fingers didn’t make him break in a cold sweat as they started to move to the syrupy standard songs played by a live band of Chiss musicians, who were the only species other than human allowed at this party. She smelled like a Naboo flower field.

“How do you know Uncle Orson?” she asked, large teeth showing through a dubious smile.

“I work for him, of course. Half of the people at the party do, right? You’re his niece as well?”

It could be his imagination. It could be that she gripped his shoulder just a little bit tighter.

“Of a sort.”

He waited for her to develop further, but she seemed content to just move silently to the music.

“Your- the bride seems very happy. You must have had fun planning this party with her,” he offered.

“She’s a friend,” she said, “at times the very best of friends. I don’t actually like this sort of thing, but you know what society is like.”

“Of course,” he replied diplomatically.

“You, however, must love this. I have a photographic memory, you know, and we had holos of all of those invited.”

There it was. It had come entirely too soon. She kept moving to the music, actually inched a little bit closer to him, her hand just a tad nearer to the collar of his jacket. He took in the strength of her shoulders and upper arms, felt defined muscle on what he was grasping of her torso. The faint sound of sirens started echoing in the back of his head, but he believed he still had things under control. He had to.

“Perhaps I just have a forgettable face, even to someone with skills.”

“Perhaps,” she conceded, and seemed to measure her words, “I’m not going to do anything. I’m just going to have fun trying to figure out what it is you are doing here.”

He felt relieved, but couldn’t entirely shake the feeling that this wasn’t just a flirtatious young woman trying to have fun with someone she had caught doing something inappropriate. Krennic’s family was small, his circle of friends even smaller. There had been nothing, in all the records he found and compiled, that spoke of another niece other than Saffira Krennic, whose golden hair he could catch with the corner in his eye as she danced with her groom. There had been no mention of a ward of any sort; he had never thought of Krennic as the philanthropic sort.

She spoke again, as he had merely looked at her expectantly.

“You can’t be one of Saf’s old boyfriends,” she said as if to herself, “I would have known who you were… unless she’d hidden you from everyone else. Perhaps you’re one of Bertt’s? I can’t say that I’d be shocked.”

He got the distinct idea that she had him figured out already, somehow, and that she was just buying time. When he had been a child on his home planet, he had always been fascinated by those sea predators in the lower continents who played with their prey before eating them; he had the feeling she was trying to do the same to him.

His reply to her rambling was to keep dancing, eyeing her as amusedly as he could. She settled in silence, letting the romantic song wash over them, and in a moment of stupidity, he clasped her a tiny bit closer. She took that as invitation and slid the hand that was on his shoulder over the back of his head. He couldn’t see her face now; the wisps of her hair that were escaping her hairdo, glimmering in the ballroom lights, brushed against his cheek. Before he knew it, she had her lips close to his ear:

“We, the beings of the Rebel Alliance, do this day send forth this Declaration to His Majesty, the Emperor, and to all sentient beings in the Galaxy, to make clear to all the Purposes and Goals of this Rebellion.”

His fight or flight instinct was screaming within him at this point, but she drew her head back and fixed her eyes on his. There was such naked emotion there that he felt something coiling firmly around his heart. The expression in her eyes was unmistakable.

She was asking for help.

The song they were dancing to finished right at that moment. Her eyes were still wide, still fixed on his face.

He nodded at her, imperceptibly. She curled her hand on his arm.

“I need some air,” she said demurely, tugging him in the direction of a terrace.

Later, as she leaned on the railing and looked at the vastness of light and duracrete that made up Imperial Center’s skyline, he noticed other things he hadn’t quite registered in the dim lighting of the ballroom. Her hands were rougher than the average society debutante’s, her body spoke much more of action than of the mere worry about fitness. As she rested, he noticed she was incredibly bothered by her shoes.

“Who are you?” he asked.

She took a deep breath, checked her surroundings in a such a skilled fashion, he was certain for a moment that he was going to die at the hands of a double agent, but something in his gut told him to trust her.

“Jyn Erso.”

Well, kriff.

“Erso as in-“

“Yes,” she interrupted, brusquely.

“Is your father alive?”

“Alive, yes. And no, he’s not here, but he’s willing.”

This was so much better than getting snippets of information from drunken assholes. She leaned towards him, brushed her shoulder against his.

“I supposed you’re not…” she mumbled, looking at him expectantly.

“Sergeant Sward? No.”

“Alright, then,” she whispered.

He saw her eyes dart towards the party and he did the same, catching a white uniform just hovering behind the glass panes. She seemed to wait a few seconds, lower lip caught in her teeth. Then she leaned further into him with a mischievous smile, raised herself on her tiptoes and kissed him. He had done this sort of thing while undercover before, but never had it sent such a jolt down his spine. He found himself letting go of the railing to grab her face with both hands, his thumb running smoothly over her jaw.

The glass door hissed open and the disjointed sound of a protocol droid made them break apart.

“Miss Erso,” it said, “Director Krennic is looking for you.

“Of course he is,” she mumbled against his jacket.

“Are you going to be all right?” he pressed his lips to her hairline.

“Yes, but don’t worry. Uncle Orson cares too much about appearances. Landing pad 7, 0030. I’m going on a trip and I think you might have some ideas for my destination?”

She pressed her lips once more against his and left, leaving behind a whiff of flowery perfume behind her.


	2. An escape

The hotel’s private hangar was quiet, almost too much so, but then the party had died down for a while now. Sward had dutifully waited for the bride and groom to leave in order to say goodbye to his colleagues. He had come alone, not quite knowing what to expect. What he gathered from her parting words was that she wanted - or was going - to defect, if it could be called that; he wasn’t sure what her exact circumstances were.

Landing pad 7 was the nearest to the exit and the ship landed on it was the only one that showed signs of activity. He had traded his officer’s uniform for a leather jacket and Corellian trousers, as well as rid his hair of the product Imperial regulation demanded it to be brushed with. Once he approached the small freighter, his hand loose on the hilt of his blaster, someone came out of the ramp, armed, but with hands that were visible.

“You-,” the young man cleared his throat and spoke softly, “you’re here to meet Jyn, right?”

“I am, but I’m not sure-“

“She hacked into the security system,” Sward found himself being interrupted a lot since meeting Jyn Erso, “we’re safe here.”

Not many Imperial socialites could hack into security systems. This was becoming more interesting than he had previously thought.

“And you are?”

“I’m the pilot,” the man wiped his hand on what he noticed was an Imperial pilot uniform, “Bodhi Rook.”

“The pilot?” he had a sense that there was more to this that he was supposed to know.

“He’s our way out of here,” said a voice behind him, “I told you I was going on a trip. And I can’t fly for the life of me.”

She was dressed down to a pair of practical trousers – in which he counted at least three vibroblades – and a sturdy jacket. Her hair was covered with a grey scarf, but he caught the whiff of the same perfume she was wearing at the wedding. Traces of her make up were still around her eyes.

“Bodhi and I were going to defect tonight anyway,” Jyn explained, “meeting you was just our good luck. Can we talk inside?”

He nodded and slowly followed her into the belly of the ship. He considered this could be a trap at first and kept his hand on his blaster, but there was nothing inside the freighter other than backpacks, supplies and tools. She motioned for him to have a seat in the common area. When he did so, she fiddled with a datacard. He turned expectant eyes on her.

“This,” she put the object on the table between them, “is a message from my father. He’s stationed on Eadu – I don’t get to see him much anymore. Krennic thinks my father will work quicker if he keeps us apart and uses our seeing each other as an incentive.”

He kept his face neutral as she spoke, attentive, letting her talk as he was trained to do.

“I’ll play it to you once we’re in hyperspace, once we have guarantee that it will be safe – that we will be safe,” her eyes were wide but her gaze was guarded, “we have an alternative if you’re not interested. It was our first option.”

“An alternative?”

“This is very precious intel,” she said, “and we want it to be in good hands. My father had previous contacts with the Rebel Alliance – he was the one that taught me… What I recited to you back there.”

“Your father’s been gone for a long time,” he said cautiously, “we’ve been looking for him.”

“I know,” she sighed, “it’s why I can’t be sure that his former associates are even alive. When I saw you, I just knew- everyone said you were this nice guy from Alderaan whose friends must have let into the party, but-“

“Your father taught you what to look for,” he finished.

“Yes.”

“Just like he taught you how to be a hacker.”

She nodded.

“Who taught you how to use a blade?” he quipped, feeling the corners of his mouth going up despite himself.

“When you’re around ‘troopers a lot and you’re a good Imperial little girl, there’s a lot you can get away with,” she said, her lower lip curling under her front teeth.

He leaned back on the seat, ran a hand over his face. He supposed he now could stop shaving. Finally. Sward had been making him feel uneasy in his own skin, like there was something rancid on it every time he pulled on his uniform.

“I have to get a message to my partner and another to high command,” he said carefully, “probably just at the mention of your name, though, they might request me back on base.”

She nodded, got up and went to finish last checks on the ship with Rook.

  
It didn’t take him long to get a message out to K-2SO telling him of recent developments. The droid was efficient enough to get rid of their private ship in the lower levels, pack a sensible bag of his things, and come meet them at the hangar. In the meantime, the droid had used the secure connection back at his apartment to send a message on his behalf with a brief account of the previous night and the proposed plan. One of the conditions Sward quickly established with Jyn was that K-2SO was going on the trip with them; by the irritation he caught in the corner of her eyes, he had the feeling she understood the droid was there to ensure he wasn’t betrayed.

“Captain Sward says you are friends,” the KX series droid announced as soon as it came on board the ship, “I will not kill you.”

“Thanks,” Rook replied, his eyes just a little bit wider, “I guess.”

They took off and Rook proved himself to be entirely too useful when he used his and his shuttle’s codes in order to evade Port Authority.

“I need our coordinates,” the pilot said when they broke atmo.

“Kay will calculate them for you,” he replied curtly and if Rook was troubled by the clanging of K-2 settling in the co-pilot seat in Jyn’s place he didn’t let it on.

“Where are we headed?” asked Jyn, her eyes suddenly narrowing in suspicion.

“The Rebel base,” he said, “you don’t expect me to just tell you were it is, do you?”

And just like that, gone was the flirtatious woman he had danced with the night before.

“How do we know we can trust you?”

“I’m literally in your ship.”

“I said we were going to play you the message once we had assurances we would be safe. Telling your killer bot to calculate our coordinates doesn’t make me feel particularly safe.”

“You are,” he replied, “the Alliance has an interest in you and I can guarantee that you will be treated as any other asset. Your survival is in our best interest.”

She still seemed recalcitrant. For someone looking for a way out of the trappings of the Empire, she seemed far too reluctant. There had been defecting stormtroopers who had looked at him in less suspecting fashion.

Jyn got up from her seat – they had broken atmo and didn’t need to be sitting down any more –, and walked towards the galley. He followed her, helping her out as she started storing mealpacks, nutrient bar and all sort of dehydrated foodstuff in the cupboard above the simple durasteel counter. The she reached for a particular high shelf and he saw them, stark against her fair skin: bruises encircling her wrist. She was quick to pull the sleeve over it with her fingers, but they were unmistakable. Something snagged on his chest, because her face was untouched – _Uncle Orson cares too much about appearances_ , she’d said. He eyed her carefully, not really caring if she was aware of it. There were no bruises in her neck as well, but he noticed she was careful not to strain her other shoulder, which explained why she had risked exposing her wrist. He should have been paying more attention.

“Krennic?” he asked silently, knowing almost instinctively that she would catch his meaning.

She bit her lower lip, seemed to curse in a language he couldn’t understand.

“None of your farking business,” she muttered.

“I can help, Jyn. Play me the message.”

“Kriff, Sward, do you have any-“

“Andor.”

“What?”

“My name. Cassian Andor. You can call me Cassian, actually.”

She was still looking at him like he might pull a blaster on her at any moment.

“Trust goes both ways,” he said simply. He hoped she would understand.

He could only follow as she stalked in the direction of the common area. Getting there, she shoved the datacard she took out of her pocket inside a holoprojector and the room with was filled with the image of a very haggard, fraught Galen Erso.

**

The message was far more than he was expecting. It was a death sentence on the Rebellion, this weapon; it was life-imprisonment for whoever survived. But the same brilliant mind that built it made it possible for it to be destroyed. So there was hope, in the end, in Erso’s cracked voice as he detailed in the holo message – which had made Jyn’s eyes visibly wet - how it was possible, with one precise strike to an exhaust port, to explode the entire thing in seconds.

  
Cassian couldn’t wrap his head around it. He suspected he wouldn’t be able to in normal circumstances – whatever those looked like – but the faint smell of flowers next to him made matters even worse. His brain, in a pathetic attempt to fuck further with his head, conjured the feel of her lips on his the night before, when she had tasted of wine and the ripe cherries he had seen in the buffet. Draven was going to kill him if he heard how he got access to this bit of intel; then he was probably going to promote him.

That was, if the so-called Death Star didn’t find the base on Yavin IV and kill all of them beforehand.

Jyn was doing an incredible job of keeping her voice steady when the message was finished.

“We have to convince the Rebellion to send people to Scarif.”

He nodded, dumbly.

“Please say you can help us. Please say you’re with us.”

There was something in her eyes that let him know this was real. It was in her eyes, in Bodhi Rook’s fidgeting and apparent protectiveness, in the bruises he knew were in other parts of her body and that hadn’t been there when they had danced the night before. Something swelled in his chest – not some undue macho thing he had seen frequently among fighters in the Rebellion whenever their partners got hurt – but some sort of wonder at what this woman had apparently been through in order to wait for the right moment to leave, with credible enough proof of atrocities to come. This woman had the body of a fighter, but had apparently been saving her fight for when the hour came. And apparently, the hour was now.

He clenched his jaw and nodded at her, his eyes as earnest as he could make them after years of hiding his real feelings.

“I’m with you. All the way.”


End file.
